


origin of love [lust royale remix]

by BasicBathsheba



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Purple Prose, Remix, Soulmate AU, light angst?, men in woods with swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24928645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba
Summary: Simon and Baz, heirs to their respective thrones, are soulmates. They are predestined and predetermined. But soulmate stories can be dangerous. Soulmate stories can be twisted.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 21
Kudos: 415
Collections: Carry On Remix, snowbaz





	origin of love [lust royale remix]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovelessinmanhattan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelessinmanhattan/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lust Royale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17529419) by [lovelessinmanhattan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelessinmanhattan/pseuds/lovelessinmanhattan). 



> This is a remix of the lovely lovelessinmanhattan's fic "lust royale". I recommend you read that first, as parts of the dialogue and overarching story were pulled from that fic.  
> Loveless, it was an honour to get to work on this for you—thanks so much! Also thanks to captain-aralias for organising this event. @tbazzsnow for your incredible beta and guidance and pushing. Genuinely thank you for everything—and for offering to write the kiss. Ultimately, I was lazy, but your willingness is appreciated. and thank you @godisbread for just shouting at me 
> 
> This is very different to anything I've ever written before, but I hope you all like this silly little thing!

_**part one - once upon a time** _

Once upon a time there were two princes. The first was born in the heat of summer, at the height of the midday sun. They said he was born crying, unconsolable, unable to contain himself or stop his tears. No one knew why he cried, and nothing could soothe him. Until one night, during the longest night of winter when the moon rose, suddenly the little prince’s cries subsided, and he finally rested.

In the neighbouring kingdom, the second little prince had been born.

***

It had been so long since true soul mates were born into the world that the two kingdoms had almost forgotten the stories. They were resigned to history books and nursery rhymes, belonging to a world of dragons and magic. they were whispered into the night, under the blankets of young girls, by lovers anguished before their first steps down the wedding aisle, by those left behind at the passing of loved ones.

It had been so long since a set of soulmates had been born—two children, sharing the same heart—that the kingdoms had forgotten just how dangerous they could be.

***

Baz had grown up knowing everything about soulmates. When he turned ten, his father had come to his room at the top of the turret and gifted him a trunk full of books. They had gilded pages and leather binding and tiny, fastidious handwriting. They were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“This is our history,” his father had told him. “Everything you will ever need to know is in these books.”

Baz believed his father, because he’d never known him to lie, but he also knew it wasn’t the truth. The books would never tell him how his mother died. They’d never explain how it was his fault.

***

_“In the beginning, humans were born with two heads. Four arms, with which to wrap around their bodies, and four eyes with which to view the world from all angles, and two mouths to speak in harmony. They were such perfect creatures that to look on them was to see true joy._

_But true joy is not joyous to all. Not all were born with two minds to work as one, or four hands to grasp each other. Those born with two eyes and one heart would look upon these perfect creatures and the joy would turn to ash in their mouth. It filled their lungs like smoke and turned them angry, desperate, and cruel._

_And so they took these creatures who had known true joy and they cut them in two and split them down the middle, so that they would have to see only the world before them, and would have no hands to hold in the night. They sewed up the creature’s wounds and set them on their way, to walk through the world alone, always seeking, always yearning, always looking for their missing half.”_

***

They had been five when it was discovered.

The kingdoms were at peace, still, but it was uneasy. Peace was forged on old traditions and a continuation of centuries of established order, a foundation which was beginning to crack at the edges and fray at the seams.

Baz had been brought to greet the visiting royals. His mother believed it was a show of good will. There was another prince, just his age, she knew. A boy that had been called as sunny as the day he was born, with bronze hair and freckles. They said he was a happy child. Her own son was a quiet type. He kept to his own shadow, and was a sensitive boy. He could do with some sun, she had thought.

Baz could not remember what Prince Simon looked like. It was so long ago, his memory was unreliable. When he thought back to it, Simon was only a supernova in his mind. A blistering sun who left orange spots swimming in his vision when Baz closed his eyes.

His memories of that day came from the memories of others. His aunt, telling him how he couldn’t sleep the night before the visiting royals arrived. According to her, he sat up at the window, like he was waiting for something, but he couldn’t tell anyone what.

Once, his father let slip that Baz and Simon had run to each other. The doors had opened and a small blur had slipped through and raced across the room, his father said. He had been tired the night he told Baz—up late at his papers, his face more lined than usual, his exhaustion luring him into a level of honesty he rarely ventured to.

“I will never forget the sound you made,” his father had whispered. “You slipped from your mother’s grip and ran to him and you cried. You cried like I’d never heard you cry before. We thought you’d been hurt.”

His step-mother had been the one to fill in the rest. How he and this faceless boy who blazed in his memory had clung to each other, inseparable, and began to weep when they were separated. How Baz’s nose had bled. How Simon had begun to choke.

There were accusations of curses. Deception. Poison and lies. For four days the families fought, and for four days Baz clung to his soulmate. The boy he could not remember.

It was Baz’s mother who had suggested they were soulmates. Of course it was his mother. Baz always liked that part of the story—how she had been the one to solve it. He had heard she was very clever. He had always wanted to be clever like her.

Or maybe more clever than her. Because in the end, she could not find a solution.

The boys were too young. Perhaps if they were older, they could have resisted the pull. Perhaps with time it would weaken. But separating them would surely kill them. They would have to stay together, she declared. She would foster Prince Simon in her kingdom, and when he came of an age he and Baz would return to Simon’s home kingdom, and in time, the two lands would become one.

Sometimes, very late at night, Baz would sit at his window and wonder what would have happened if the King had agreed.

***

Prince Simon’s father was not secure in his throne.

He’d won it through battle and alliance and maneuvering, and he’d been anxious to have a son. With a son, he would preserve his legacy. His rule would be secure, his heir assured.

He would not lose his son to the kingdom he, himself, planned to conquer.

***

It was Baz who alerted everyone that something had gone wrong. He awoke in the middle of the night, crying. He told his nurse that something had been cut from his chest, but there was no blood. No scarring.

The next morning, Baz’s mother fell ill. Simon and the King had left in the night. Simon’s own mother had fallen ill as well, the messenger said. She had passed away on the journey back to her own kingdom.

Baz’s mother died three days later. They said it was natural causes, but Baz knew it couldn’t have been. She had died because of him.

She had died for him.

***

When they went to prepare Queen Natasha for burial, they found a lock of bronze hair braided along her crown. Baz’s father had kept it: curled neatly and tied in a ribbon, hidden at the bottom of his desk. For sentimental reasons, Baz assumed, but he could not imagine what they were.

Baz had found the strand when he was fourteen. It had almost called to him, sung to him from across the room, and when he opened the kerchief it was tied in he felt as though his heart squeezed in his chest and threatened to choke him.

He did not know what the hair was doing there, or the face it belonged to, but he knew in his very self that it was _his_. He stole it from the drawer and carried it in his pocket always, tucked against his breast.

On his sixteenth birthday, when he was woken with the news that Prince Simon had just won his first battle, had delivered unto his father the head of his enemies and sworn a vow to bring him Baz’s head next, Baz took the bronze curl from his pocket.

He plaited it into his own hair, just at the nape of his neck, right at the place where a lock of hair had been cut from his head when he was a child and had never grown back.

  
  


_**part two - enemies in the wood** _

Sometimes, late at night, Baz would try to imagine what Simon looked like. He would try to remember past the sunspots in his vision, imagine the face behind the brightness. He should know Simon’s face, he thought. He had read all the literature on soulmates. He should know Simon’s face as well as his own. When he was small, he used to make a wish that he could remember, so that when he fell asleep and thought of his soulmate, he could imagine it better.

As he grew, he wished to know Simon’s face, so he would recognise the man when he came to kill him.

On Baz’s eighteenth birthday, he got his wish.

It was given to him by the daughter of a nearby earl. Agatha was lovely, with hair the colour of sun and sad eyes. She was passing through, she had said, on her way to the neighbouring kingdom. The prince was to be married, she said. She had received a portrait of him and an invitation to come to his palace to meet him.

Their parents were very eager for the match.

Baz didn’t often think of what would happen after he faced Simon in battle. He knew he would never fight back. He had no interest in living in a world without Simon. Since a boy, his purpose, his meaning, had been tied to Simon. He had never for a moment considered a life without or beyond him. In his softest moments, in his most regretted ones, he would close his eyes and try to remember the comfort he had felt the first time he met Simon. His memory of Simon’s face was gone, but that feeling—that warmth and relief and security still remained, small tendrils of painful hope that flared in his chest. 

He did not think he could be the one to cut that hope so forcefully from his own chest.

But he supposed he always thought that once he died, Simon would also cease to exist. They would not be together, but they would destroy each other, and then they would fade into the history books like all those before them.

He had never thought that Simon would go on without him. That he would marry and have a family. That Baz would be the one forgotten.

“We hear many things about Prince Simon,” his father said, carrying on the conversation as though there was nothing unusual. As if the fabric of what was _meant to be_ wasn’t being pulled apart, seam by seam.

“He’s said to be a great warrior,” Agatha said.

“Indeed. He has promised his father my head,” Baz said, unable to hide his bitterness. He still did not know why Simon had taken such a vow, but Baz could only imagine. The news of Simon’s impending marriage only strengthened his suspicions: Simon wished to rid himself of his soulmate, cut out the weakness and vulnerability and close that chapter.

“I am sure the rumours of that are greatly exaggerated,” Agatha said. “His portrait looks very kind. Would you like to see it?”

Not for the first time, Baz wondered how many people knew. Was it such a secret that only the two families were aware? Or did the whole kingdom speak of him and his missing part?

“No,” Baz said quickly. “No, I would not.”

But that night when he returned to his turret, there was a delicately wrapped package sitting on the floor outside his room. Inside was a small portrait. Pocket-sized, rendered in golds and bronzes and startled flecks of blue.

Baz wished he had not seen it. He decided he had preferred not knowing.

***

No one knew exactly why Prince Simon was determined to kill his soulmate. Baz’s father believed it was entirely at the spurring of the King. But there was still the question—how had he been convinced to turn against his other half? Even if it was some intervention, even if it was some force, how could someone exert so much influence?

Baz imagined killing Simon, sometimes. He closed his eyes and imagined driving a sword through his heart, and the image always, without fail, left him cold and shaking. Killing Simon felt like cutting out a piece of himself.

No. He couldn’t do it. He’d rather be the one to fall.

***

The news about the wedding was unwanted, but unsurprising. Agatha was lovely. Baz was not surprised Simon had chosen her.

Baz’s father and aunt gave him nervous looks throughout breakfast that day. The wedding was to be soon. A clock had been set, counting down, minute by minute, until Baz’s soulmate pledged himself to another.

Baz refused to meet their gazes. He ate his breakfast calmly, did his lessons with as much attention as usual, practiced his swordplay, and then, when he felt satisfied that no one was watching him, he took his horse and slipped out into the woods.

He rarely came to the woods. They were the barrier between his kingdom and Simon’s, and Baz had never truly trusted himself not to simply keep riding, until the trees fell away and the landscape changed, and he arrived at the gates of Simon’s castle, furious and desperate, demanding that Simon explain himself.

Perhaps he should do that now. Perhaps he should keep riding until he hit the gates, and offer himself up as a wedding present to the prince and his new bride. Perhaps he could kneel, waiting for his fate.

Perhaps he could kill Simon himself, and leave his soulmate’s broken, bloody body on the threshold of the bridal chamber.

***

Baz camped by the stream for a time, laying on the mossy rocks, one arm under his head. The other dangled, the cool water running through and around his long fingers. The canopy of the trees threw shadows on his face. When he closed his eyes, he could see the sunspots, the breaks in the trees where the sun shone in and warmed his face in flickering, unsteady shafts of light.

He was almost asleep when he heard the noise.

A crack. A step. A branch breaking. Another footfall, an unsteady breath, and then—the unmistakable rasp of a sword drawing breath.

Baz opened his eyes slowly, already sure of what he was going to see. The sunspots had warned him.

“Baz,” Simon whispered.

Baz gazed up at him from his position on the ground. Simon had a sword to his neck—a long sword, a beautiful thing, held firm in Simon’s large, freckled fist. Baz traced the freckles and moles that ran up from Simon’s knuckles to his bare wrist, disappearing under his tunic. He followed the thick, corded lines of his arms, up to his neck—more moles—and then his face, both tan and wind-chapped. He had scars. One on his lip. Another across his eyebrow. Tiny marks breaking up the pattern of moles and freckles on his face, a small gash running from the corner of one blue eye.

Baz had lived his life safe and sad inside a turret. Simon had clearly lived his, determined and brave, on a battlefield.

Baz’s heart clenched, beat furiously, and then settled, as if it was finally at peace, as if it could finally slow.

“Simon,” Baz responded, and then closed his eyes. He would wait for the death blow.

This was a good place to die, with Simon’s face imprinted on the back of his eyelids.

There was a shaky breath from above him. 

“This ends here,” Simon declared. Baz wondered at the wording. It felt as though everything had just started. “I have to kill you. We both know it.”

Baz refused to open his eyes.

“So be it. Kill me.”

The cool metal of Simon’s sword pressed harder into Baz’s neck. The point pushed into his skin—just enough to prick. It would only spill a small amount of blood.

“I have to kill you,” Simon said again. There was a crack in his voice. Baz fought against the desire to open his eyes. He didn’t want to see Simon’s distressed, distraught face.

He may love his soulmate—he’d never had any other option—but he didn’t have to forgive him. Baz refused to feel sympathy for what Simon was about to do.

The sword was hesitating, and the peace and satisfaction in Baz’s stomach shifted, curled, coiled into frustration.

“Just do it,” he ordered. “Just strike me down.”

A growl ripped itself from Simon’s chest, but the sword didn’t press closer.

“Why can’t I kill you?” Simon whispered. The blade pressed closer. There was blood, now. Baz could feel it, trickling down his skin. It would pool in the grass beneath him. He could feel it in his hair. “I know I have to kill you….”

Baz held his breath.

“But I don’t think I can.”

The cool kiss of the metal fell away, and Baz heard a soft _thud_ as something hit the ground. He slowly, carefully opened his eyes.

Simon was on his knees in the grass beside him, his sword abandoned, his face distraught.

“Thank you,” Baz whispered.

Simon stared at him, his face a mask of fury and hatred.

“He told me I would kill you. He told me I _had_ to, that it was my _fate_.” Simon spat the word like it was a vulgarity. “Killing you is my destiny.”

Horror began to creep through Baz’s veins like ivy crawling through the underbrush, like frost spreading through grass on the first morning of autumn.

This was how you turned someone against their soulmate.

You changed the story.

***

They laid together on the bank of the stream, not touching, their faces turned to the sun.

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?” Simon asked, finally.

“Because it’s not my destiny to kill you,” Baz responded. He felt curious. Uprooted and unsettled. Half of him was screaming to touch Simon—screaming to press himself along the other man’s side and breathe in, breath the first real, complete breath in years.

And the other part was mourning. Simon didn’t know. He didn’t know what they were. He didn’t know what Baz was.

“He told me it was,” Simon argued, his voice small. “He said—the prophecy. One will come to end us all, and one will bring his fall. We’re destined to fight. One of us _will_ kill the other.”

Baz had read every prophecy, every book on soulmates, every story and rumour and song and ballad. And he’d never heard this.

“Maybe that’s your fate,” Baz said quietly. “But it’s not mine. You can kill me, if you wish. I’ve been expecting it for some time, to be honest. I’m surprisingly grateful to still be alive, but if you change your mind, I won’t fight you.” He curled his fingers in the grass. “I won’t kill you.”

Simon was silent beside him. Despite his earlier promise, Baz did feel pity. Everything Simon had held true his whole life was wrong. Untrue. Distorted. If Baz’s pieces were slowly coming back together, Simon’s were shattering apart.

Beside him, Simon shifted, to his side, propping his head in his hand.

“I feel…” he began. Stopped. Chewed on his lip. “It’s the strangest thing….” He began again. “If I’m not your destiny, then why—”

“I never said you weren’t my destiny,” Baz interrupted. “I only said my fate wasn’t to kill you. You were the one who chose that path.”

“Well if I chose that path, as you say, then I can choose another, can’t I?”

Baz’s breath hitched. He wanted to know what kind of life Simon would choose for himself.

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he responded slowly. “But I’d like a chance to live.” _With you_.

“I feel like I know you,” Simon said, his voice quiet. “Like I’m picking up a conversation we started this morning. Like...like you’ve always been there, in the back of my mind, answering my thoughts. It’s like I know your voice. But we’ve never met before.”

Baz turned to look into Simon’s eyes.

“Are you sure about that?”

The storm that had been building in Simon’s eyes cleared, suddenly. His jaw set.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think I’m sure about anything anymore.” 

And then suddenly it was sunspots.

Simon leaned over and pressed his mouth to Baz’s, his hand tangling in the grass-stained, bloody front of Baz’s own shirt.

Baz felt as though he could sob. He felt as though his whole body was shuddering in relief, as if he was warm for the first time in his life, as if he was finally taking in air. Like he had been fighting a battle for a thousand years, and finally—finally he could rest.

A whimper—a cry—a sob like a wounded animal broke free from his chest, and Baz buried his hands in Simon’s curls. Bronze curls. The same colour as the lock he’d carried with him. The same as the one Baz had plaited into his hair. 

Simon kissed him back with the same frenzied recklessness, his hands gripping everywhere, pulling Baz closer and closer, like he wanted to consume him. Like he wanted to mold himself to Baz’s form, like if he kissed him deeply enough, they could tie their hearts together, chamber by chamber.

Simon pulled back first, his eyes glazed, wonder in his voice.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered, kissing at the corner of Baz’s eye. Baz laid there and let it happen. Let this surreal, impossible, destined happiness wash through him. His first good thing.

“I think you do,” Baz said. He didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to explain it. He wanted Simon to come to it himself.

“I don’t. I know I want this, but I don’t...why does it feel….” Simon trailed off. Baz softened.

“Because we’re destined,” Baz said. He placed a hand to Simon’s chest. “Because your heart beats in me, and mine in yours.”

Simon frowned.

Baz suddenly realised how foolish he’d been.

“No one believes in that soulmate stuff,” Simon said, unaware of the way that frost was creeping back into Baz’s veins. He kissed the top of Baz’s eyebrow. “That’s just stories people tell to feel better about arranged marriages and stuff.”

“Arranged marriages like yours,” Baz said stiffly.

Simon shrugged, and twisted a lock of Baz’s hair around his finger. “Forget about that.” Simon shook his head and laughed, light and free. “That doesn’t matter. _None_ of it matters. Fuck destiny. Fuck fate. This is…” he shook his head, wonder and delight in his eyes. “This is choice.”

Baz sat up, his pulse thrumming. Simon didn’t know. Simon didn’t _understand_. He’d been living a lie, following an unknown destiny blindly and willingly. Baz couldn’t hand him another one.

This is why soulmates were dangerous, Baz thought. Because when you found yours, you would cut out your own heart to save the other.

“Simon,” Baz said slowly. He closed his eyes. His stomach was shredding itself apart. “Go back to your fiance.”

“What?” Simon’s face fell. The cloud returned. “Why?”

“This isn’t…” Baz took a deep breath. “This can’t work.”

Simon had been raised and groomed and manipulated into killing Baz in battle. No matter how strong the bonds of soulmates may be, it didn’t matter. Simon would never be allowed to be with Baz.

Baz wouldn’t make him choose.

“But you said I was your—”

“Destiny can be wrong. Fuck destiny,” Baz echoed. He stood up and wiped the dirt and grass from his trousers. “Go home, Simon. Go back to your bride. Forget you ever met me, and let us continue our lives on our own, undisturbed by the other.”

Baz had lived his life alone before. He knew he could do it again.

Simon rose to his feet, and in the movement Baz saw every battle Simon had ever fought and won. Saw the hard lines of a warrior’s brittle determination, the grim and brutal mask that had been chiseled and worn into Simon’s soft face.

“Fuck you,” he spat, grabbing his sword. Baz wondered if it would plunge into his chest, but instead Simon sheathed it. “Fuck you.”

Simon turned and stalked back through the forest, away from Baz, who stood shaking, sweaty, nervous and distraught.

He wondered, vaguely, who would have to die this time in order to allow Simon his freedom from Baz.

He hoped, distantly, that it would be him.

_**part three - happily ever after** _

Baz had a secret.

He had discovered that, upon ripping his own heart from his chest and tucking it into Simon’s pocket to carry back to his home and future wife, nothing else hurt. Any other pain was secondary. Nothing could touch him.

This is why he did not attempt to keep his thoughts from Simon. The sunspots in his vision were brighter than ever before, searing his eyes, leaving outlines and haze on everything he looked at, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to stop.

In another life—a life before he had met Simon in the woods and felt what it was like to be whole—he would not have thought about Simon’s wedding at all. He would not have tried to imagine what Simon was thinking.

But in this life—this empty life, this shadow life he had now begun—he didn’t try. On the morning of Simon’s wedding, Baz laid in bed and imagined.

He imagined Simon waking, his chest hollow and hurting, his eyes vacant. He imagined a small tendril of doubt creeping along Simon’s beautiful face. He imagined him dressing while staring into the distance.

He imagined Simon feeling as vacant and hollowed out as Baz himself felt.

Baz dressed himself, ate breakfast, and sat, imagining Simon’s eyes going glassy as he drank goblet after goblet of cider at his wedding breakfast. To numb himself to what was to come.

Baz was sure that Simon felt no such thing. Baz was sure that Simon was going forward to his chosen destiny with determination and no regrets.

But Baz was a fool with a soft heart, and so he indulged himself in imagining that as Simon walked to the altar, his lovely bride waiting, Simon would recoil—just slightly—from the touch of a small, delicate female hand.

Baz remembered how tightly Simon had gripped him in the forest. He knew how tightly he had held Simon back.

The light touch of Agatha’s hand would never be what Simon craved.

As Baz climbed to his turret, determined to spend the day there, drinking and daring himself to put an end to the farce of his life, he imagined Simon dropping Agatha’s hand. Stepping away. Shaking his head, his blue eyes wide and horrified.

He imagined Simon running.

Baz could picture it so vividly as he poured another glass of wine for himself. Simon outpacing guards. Simon stealing the horse that was meant to pull his wedding carriage. Racing through the woods. Branches whipping at his face and tearing his white doublet. Simon pushing his horse harder and harder, closer and closer to Baz.

Baz imagined the pain in his own chest uncoiling, just slightly, with every step Simon took.

At sunset, Baz was still in his turret, and Simon was likely married.

***

Baz descended slowly, his legs unsteady. He was not drunk—but he was not sober. He would eat with his family, so as not to worry them, and then that night he would go back to the forest and lay by the stream.

Maybe he would not come back.

***

The courtyard was quiet as Baz saddled his horse. He did not turn around—he knew he would see his father at the window above, watching. Baz had promised to return tomorrow. Just one night, he had said. His father had not pressed.

Baz was glad that he did it. Free of the castle, free of his family, free of the memories and past of his childhood, spent waiting in a tower for Simon. Every step into the forest brought him easier breaths. Every snap of twigs and rustle of branches soothed the pounding headache, the pulsing shard in his chest.

He stopped to dismount just short of the stream, and his breath caught.

Simon was standing there. His own horse was sweaty, tired, covered in mud. Simon had cuts across his face. His white and gold doublet was torn.

“Baz,” he breathed, and took three long steps.

Baz stepped back.

“What are you doing here?” Baz’s voice did not shake. He was very proud.

“I left,” Simon said. So simply. “I ran.”

“Why?”

Simon’s brow furrowed. “Because of you.”

Baz took another step back.

“Why?”

Simon stepped toward him.

“Because I—” Simon stopped. “There is a place in my chest that has been missing. I didn’t know it. I didn’t know I was empty. And then once I met you, it’s like my heart has found rhythm finally. Like I’m at ease in my skin. Like things are finally... _easy_.”

Baz remained silent.

“It felt like there was this invisible link that kept tugging me back here,” Simon said. “I—I told Agatha.” He looked away, his face flushing. “And when I went back to my room last night, there was something on the ground in front of it, waiting for me. It was a book. About soulmates.”

“You don’t believe in soulmates.”

“I don’t know what I believe in,” Simon said immediately. “But I know what I feel.”

“Simon—” Baz began. Then stopped. They were back to where they started. Baz had already let Simon go once. How cruel was the world that he had to do it again? “You have been lied to. Nothing has changed. Your father...your father won’t accept this. This cannot work.”

“I don’t care. I’m choosing you.”

“You’re not choosing me!” Baz shouted. “You feel destined to be with me, just as you previously thought you were destined to kill me! You have an opportunity, Simon. You could be free of all this. You could choose your own path.”

“I _am_ choosing!” Simon shouted back. He stepped closer to Baz again. “I’m choosing you. Fuck destiny, fuck fate. Fuck my father. I’ll fight his armies if he makes me. I’ll bring my men and camp outside your castle for years if you ask me to. I’m looking at my choices and I’m looking at my options and I’m choosing _you_.”

“Why?”

Simon frowned.

“Because you’re the first person who has ever been honest with me,” Simon said, quietly. “Even when you had everything to lose.”

“So that’s just it, then? The wedding called off. Your father’s love shunned. Your country and throne abandoned?” Baz could hear the harsh notes in his voice.

Simon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing does, except you. Except us.”

“Simon, how can there be an us?” Baz sighed. For something that was destined, pre-determined and meant to be, it felt impossible.

“I don’t know,” Simon admitted. “But, I’m willing to try if you are.”

Baz stared down at his feet, before meeting Simon’s eyes. Blue eyes. Shrouded in the shadow of the forest. There was no sun—it had long ago set—and yet Baz’s vision was all sunspots.

Baz had nothing to say. Simon stepped closer.

“I choose you,” Simon said again. “You’re worth the fight. Will you choose me too?”

Baz surrendered.

“Simon, no matter what, you’ll always be worth fighting for.”

And then he kissed him.


End file.
